Odin's Tic-Tac-Toe

Need a hand? Email sean@hollender-consulting.com and I'll get back to you.

GETTING STARTED

Odin's Tic-Tac-Toe is free. No ads, no tracking, nothing to buy — not now, not later. It plays on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac, and the whole game works with no account, signed out of everything, with no network at all.

All nine boards share one move: on your turn you put a mark on an empty cell. What changes from board to board is the size of the grid, how many in a row you need, and what completing a row actually means.

• iPhone and iPad — tap the cell you want.
• Apple TV — swipe on the remote to move the focus ring around the board and click to place your mark. During a game, Back (Menu) or Play/Pause opens the Paused card, with Resume and Main Menu; during a replay, Back stops it; on any other screen, Back closes it.
• Mac — click the cell. From the keyboard: Command-Z undo, Shift-Command-R restart, Shift-Command-M sound. Help > Video Instructions plays the lesson, and Help > How to Play (Command-?) opens the rules, in a game too.

WAYS TO PLAY

• Solo Game — pick Easy, Medium, Hard or Expert on any board, then Play Now. The gold Play vs Computer button on the main menu starts a game straight away. You always take the first seat.
• Pass & Play — two people sharing one screen.
• Play Online — Quick Async Match, Live Match, or an invitation to a friend.
• Play Someone Nearby — two devices in the same room, no account needed.

VIDEO INSTRUCTIONS

A short lesson played on the real board, with captions and no narration: the basics, the different boards and the ways to play, in about three minutes (on an iPhone Duo, with a chapter on its poses). Open it from Video Instructions on the main menu, from the button on How to Play, or on Mac from Help > Video Instructions. Pause it, skip five seconds back or forward, jump to a chapter, or read every caption as a transcript. With Reduce Motion on it goes step by step instead of playing. The lesson plays no game of yours: nothing in it is saved or scored.

THE NINE BOARDS

Nine games, from the one everybody knows to one that takes a while:

• Classic — the 3×3 board you grew up with. Three in a row wins; a full board with no line is a draw.
• 4×4 — sixteen cells, and it takes four in a row. Three does nothing here.
• 5×5 — twenty-five cells, still four in a row. The first seat has the edge, so the second one has to defend early.
• Misère — Classic backwards: complete three in a row and you LOSE. The centre is the safe opening and the corners are traps.
• Wild — 3×3, and on your turn you may place either mark. Whoever completes any three in a row wins, whichever mark it is made of.
• Gomoku — five in a row on a fifteen-by-fifteen board. Six or more counts too. Build two threats at once; a single threat just gets blocked.
• Drop Four — seven columns, six rows. Pick a column and your shield falls to the lowest free cell in it. Four in a row, column or diagonal wins.
• Ultimate — nine small boards make one large board, and the cell you play in sends your opponent to the matching small board. Win a small board with three in a row; win three small boards in a row to win the game. Sent to a board that is already decided or full? Play anywhere that is open.
• Order & Chaos — 6×6, and both players may place either mark. Order moves first and wins by making five in a row of either mark; Chaos wins if the board fills up without one. There are no draws.

Pick a board in World of Tic-Tac-Toe on the main menu, or tap the board name on the main menu or the Solo Game screen. Your choice applies to new games — a game already under way keeps the board it started on. How to Play, also on the main menu, gives you the rules of whichever board is selected.

THE MARKS, AND WHO IS WHO

X is a pair of crossed axes and O is a round shield, so the two seats are called Axes and Shields. Drop Four is played with shields on both sides, so there the seats are Red and Black. Order & Chaos calls its seats Order and Chaos, because on that board neither player owns a mark.

THE COMPUTER OPPONENTS

Four strengths that genuinely play differently. Easy plays loosely and makes human mistakes. Medium thinks a few moves ahead. Hard plans carefully. Expert plays the small boards perfectly and the big ones with real depth.

Classic, Misère and 4×4 are drawn games with perfect play, so Expert cannot be beaten on them — a draw is the best result there. That is the mathematics of those boards, not a bug in the app. Every other board can be won.

THE COACH

Switch Coach on on the Solo Game screen before you start a game against the computer — or tap the lightbulb during one — and the app points out a move worth considering, with a short note on why. It exists only in games against the computer; a hint in Pass & Play would be read by the person sitting opposite you.

Where it can see the end, the coach says how far off it is: "This wins in 3 moves." or "This loses in 5 moves.", counting both players' moves. When a move of yours has handed the computer a forced win, it says so at your next turn — "Your last move loses in 4 moves." Tap Show why and the line goes on the board: every move marked in its cell and numbered in order, in the colour of the player who makes it. Where it cannot be sure, it says "This looks losing." rather than a number. Restart and Play Again keep the Coach on or off, as you left it.

A game you start with the Coach switched on still goes into your win/loss record, but it earns no XP. Turning the Coach on part-way through a game marks it as assisted: it still earns XP, but it stays off the best-streak and fastest-Expert leaderboards and out of the Unaided achievement.

UNDO AND RESTART

Undo takes back your last move; against the computer it takes back the computer's reply as well. Restart clears the board and begins the same game again. Both sit with the board's other controls — under the board in portrait, in the column to its left in landscape and on Mac, and on the side rail on Apple TV. Neither exists in an online or nearby match — there is no taking a move back from an opponent. There, that control is Resign instead.

SAVED GAMES

Up to six games are kept; a seventh pushes out the one at the bottom of the list. Every move saves automatically, so leaving the app never loses a game. The game at the top of the list is the Continue card on the main menu, and Saved opens the rest; drag one to reorder the list, or hold one to rename or delete it. A finished game leaves the list. Online matches are not saved this way — they live on Game Center's side and are waiting for you on the Play Online hub.

MY GAMES AREN'T SYNCING BETWEEN DEVICES

Saved games, your records, your rank and even your chosen language sync through your own iCloud account. Make sure every device is signed in to the same Apple Account with iCloud Drive turned on. On Apple TV that is under Settings > Users & Accounts. After a fresh install it can take a moment — or one relaunch — for the first sync to arrive.

APPLE TV IS A SHARED DEVICE

On Apple TV each person's profile gets its own saved games, records, rank and Game Center account. Switching profiles in Control Center switches the app over to that person's games.

PLAYING ONLINE

Three ways to play someone who isn't in the room:

• Quick Async Match — pairs you with another player automatically. It is turn-based, so you each move at your own pace over hours or days, and Game Center tells you when it's your move.
• Live Match — both of you connected at once, moves landing instantly.
• Invite a Friend — pick someone by name, choose Live or Async, and they are asked to accept. An invitation arrives on the Play Online hub as its own row with Join and Decline.

These three need you signed in to Game Center (Settings > Game Center).

Matchmaking is per board: a Quick Async Match on Gomoku pairs you with somebody else who chose Gomoku. The hub marks the boards where players are active; every other board says Tap to check (Press to check on Apple TV). Tap it to look — if someone is waiting you go straight into their match, and if not the row says No one waiting.

When a game ends, either player can offer a rematch. In a live or nearby rematch the seats swap, so whoever moved second last time moves first; in a turn-based rematch, whoever starts it takes the first move.

WHY CAN'T THIS ACCOUNT SEND A LIVE INVITATION?

Because Game Center will not deliver a live invitation from an account that has communication limits, and on a child account those come from the account's age under Family Sharing — not from anything set in Screen Time. Nothing you can switch on the device changes it. The app checks before it asks, so you get an explanation instead of an invitation that silently never arrives.

Everything else on that account still works: a friend can still invite that account, Quick Async Match works normally, and Play Someone Nearby doesn't use Game Center at all. Parental controls can refuse a Live Match search too — the app says so, and a parent can change it in Screen Time. And a child account can join a turn-based rematch but cannot start one; ask the other player to tap Rematch.

There is a second, different case. If Multiplayer Games is switched off for the account, live play cannot connect at all — and that one IS a Screen Time setting. Whoever set the device up can allow it under Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions. Nearby play works either way.

LIVE MATCH ON APPLE TV

Apple allows real-time matchmaking only for the Apple TV's main user. An added profile is refused by Game Center itself, even when it is signed in to iCloud, and the app says so on the search screen rather than spinning. Quick Async Match works for every profile, and so does Play Someone Nearby.

PLAYING SOMEONE NEARBY

Play Someone Nearby is separate from the three modes above and does not need Game Center or the internet. Two devices on the same local network find each other by name and connect directly. If you are signed in to Game Center the other player sees your nickname and the kind of device, such as "Sean · iPad"; if not, your device's name is used.

I CAN'T FIND ANYONE NEARBY

Both devices have to be on the same network with the Play Someone Nearby screen open — discovery runs while you are on that screen, and briefly during a nearby game to reconnect if the link drops. The first time you open it, the device asks permission to find things on your local network; if that was declined the app cannot see anyone, and it will say so. Turn it back on in Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network (on Mac, System Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network).

CAN I PLAY WITHOUT AN INTERNET CONNECTION?

Yes. All nine boards, all four computer strengths, Pass & Play, saved games, undo and the coach work with no network at all and with no account. Only the online modes, leaderboards and achievements need connectivity — Play Someone Nearby needs a local network but no internet.

RANK, LEADERBOARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Every finished game against the computer, online or with someone nearby earns XP, and XP climbs your level: Wanderer, Raider, Shieldbearer, Huscarl, Jarl, High King, and then Grand King, numbered again every five levels. A win earns the full amount for the difficulty you beat, a draw half, a loss a quarter — and the board scales it, so a Gomoku or Ultimate game is worth one and a half times a full-value board and a Classic game half. Online, a win is worth 250 XP, a draw 125 and a loss 60, scaled by the gap between your levels: beating a stronger player pays more, up to three times as much, and beating a much weaker one pays less. Your opponent's card shows what a win is worth. A game with someone nearby pays 60, 30 or 15. The first XP-earning game you play on each board each day carries a small bonus. Your Rank shows where you stand; Your Games keeps the per-board record and your streaks.

Signed in to Game Center there are 15 leaderboards — total wins, best streak, fastest Expert win, weekly wins, online wins, rank, and one for each of the nine boards — and 27 achievements. Trophies on the main menu opens them.

WHY DIDN'T THAT GAME EARN ANY XP?

Four reasons, all deliberate. Pass & Play earns nothing, because there is no single player to credit. A game started with the Coach switched on earns nothing. And there is a daily ceiling of 600 XP on games against the computer — once you reach it the result screen says so, and it resets the next day. Games against other people are not capped. And an online match that nobody ever joined pays nothing.

I CAN'T HEAR ANY SOUND

Sound has its own switch inside the app, with the board's other controls and in Settings. It is deliberately independent of the ring/silent switch, so check the in-app setting first. iPhone also plays a small haptic with each sound, and that one is independent of the sound setting; iPad has no haptic engine, so it stays quiet there by design.

WIDGET AND SIRI

On iPhone and iPad, the Your Turn widget shows an online match waiting on your move; tapping it opens that match, and it shows the whole board — Gomoku's too. You can also say "Continue my Tic-Tac-Toe game" to Siri, which opens your most recent game.

CHANGING THE LANGUAGE

Odin's Tic-Tac-Toe is playable in 50 languages. It follows your device by default, and you can override it under Settings > Language — the change applies immediately, with no relaunch, and travels to your other devices through iCloud.

ACCESSIBILITY

Every cell on the board carries a VoiceOver label saying where it is and what is on it — and on Ultimate, which small board it belongs to and whether that is the board you have been sent to. Text follows Dynamic Type, and animation respects the system Reduce Motion setting.

WHY DOES IT SAY NOUGHTS & CROSSES?

On the App Store in the United Kingdom and Australia the game is listed as Odin's Noughts & Crosses. Same app, same nine boards — just the name the game has there.

IS IT REALLY FREE?

Yes, and it stays that way. There are no ads, no tracking, no in-app purchases, no subscription and no locked boards. There are no analytics and no third-party software development kits of any kind in the app, and nothing about you is collected. The app sends only what play needs: your moves, scores and achievements through Apple's Game Center, your moves and display name to a nearby player, and your own saves and settings through your own iCloud. The only thing the app ever promotes is our own other games, behind a More Games From Us button you can walk straight past. After your third, tenth and twenty-fifth win against the computer it may ask — through Apple's own rating prompt, never more than once a month, and never again once you have tapped Rate — whether you'd rate it. The full details are on the privacy page: https://www.hollender-consulting.com/odins-tictactoe-privacy

CONTACT

sean@hollender-consulting.com Hollender Consulting, LLC — https://www.hollender-consulting.com/